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Today's "Great Song of the '70s" is an oddity.
(Note the several links at the end of today's blog!)
#1: It was of only 9 hit songs in the rock era that were originally advertising jingles. (And no, it was NOT written by Don Draper of "Mad Men.") :-)
#2: It was a Top 10 hit by two different groups AT THE SAME TIME!
Bill Backer was an ad executive at McCann Erickson in Chicago who one day found himself in Ireland on a forced layover between flights with music producer Billy Davis and songwriter Roger Cook (no relation).
They noticed that some of their fellow travelers were spending the layover by joking around and drinking Coca Cola.
Backer wrote down the line, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke," and gave it to Cook, who subsequently took it to his writing partner Roger Greenaway. What happened next? Backer, Cook, Davis and Greenaway reworked an old jingle they had used before...into a new jingle for Coke. They hired The New Seekers to sing it, and the radio jingle, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" was born.
It was a resounding success, so it was adapted for TV--in the legendary "Hilltop" ad. (See link below)
By that time, radio stations were getting REQUESTS for the jingle, but no one was keen on giving Coke free advertising....so its creators adapted it once again, adding three verses while removing all mentions of Coke to create a full-length song appropriate for commercial release.
It was recorded by a group of studio singers, who named themselves The Hillside Singers (in reference to the TV spot, in which they also sang), Shortly thereafter, The New Seekers recorded their version...and something amazing happened:
*The Hillside Singers' version reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on Billboard's Easy Listening chart...while going to #1 in Canada.
*At the same time,. The New Seekers went to #7 in the U.S. and #3 in Canada. It was also a #1 hit in UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Japan, and sold 12 million copies worldwide.
In fact, the two versions were duking it out on the charts from late December 1971 well into February 1972.
Any song that can do that certainly qualifies as a "Great Song of the '70s"...or any other decade for that matter!
Here is the Hillside version:
And the New Seekers:
And the legendary TV commercial:
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